Walt Disney World has offered to elevate 427 part-time workers to full-time status because those employees have worked enough hours during the past year to qualify as full-timers under the federal Affordable Care Act. But officials with the Service Trades Council, the coalition of unions that represents more than 30,000 full-time and part-time workers at Disney World, say they are hesitant to accept the offer because it could mean elevating some...

Dear Greg: Hughes Network advertises on TV that if you get their system you will always have access to high-speed Internet. My family lives in a rural area of Lake County not served by any other Internet provider, so we forked over $450 to have Hughes install a system. Huge mistake. From Day One, it was slower than dial-up. Most days we had no Internet at all. I placed seven calls to tech support in a four-day period to try to solve the problem. The customer-service reps are in India, and the language barrier was a problem.

Question: As part of my treatment for breast cancer , I had to have a sentinel node biopsy . The injection for that procedure was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I have checked with several other women and they all agree it is a very painful injection even though none seems to have suffered as much as I did. Why can't they do something about this? I think women are needlessly suffering because doctors don't appreciate how painful this is. Answer: To properly answer this question, several things have to be taken into consideration: the purpose of sentinel node injection, the individual perception of pain and the options to alleviate the discomfort.

The Track Shack Grand Prix series is only three weeks away.Once again the Threshold Run for the Kids 5K kicks off the 11-race schedule Sept. 26. All the regulars are expected to return. Rose Marie Vouso should be among the top women. Vouso easily outdistanced the other women in the Track Shack Anniversary run and is in training for the New York City Marathon. She should challenge Cindy Barfield and Marie Mazulla for the top spot.

When Dr. Dick Tucker organized the first Threshold 5K Run in 1979, about 200 runners showed up to run two laps around the old Florida Technological University campus.The men and women raced separately, and the school - now known as the University of Central Florida - was shut down for the event. Saturday, the 20th running of the 3.1-mile race will take place at 8 a.m. at the UCF Arena.The event has grown to become the oldest and one of the largest 5K races in the area, but this will be its last time.

Ed Juba began a successful defense of his Track Shack Grand Prix Series championship Saturday by easily winning the Threshold Run for the Kids 5K at the University of Central Florida.Juba, 29, won in 15:01 to outdistance more than 1,400 runners in the first of 11 Grand Prix Series races.Dave Smith placed second and Lenny McDonald third.Cindy Goethals Barfield, 26, won the women's division in 17 minutes, 58 seconds.Tom Sellers, competing in the wheelchair division, was actually the first person to cross the finish line as he went around the 3.1-mile course in a wheelchair record 12:35.

Defending champions Ed Juba and Cori Sedwick are expected to defend their titles Saturday in the 11th Threshold Run for the Kids 5K at the University of Central Florida. The 3.1-mile race starts at 8:15 a.m. and it is the season opener of the 12th annual Track Shack Grand Prix Series, which was won last year by Juba and Claudia Kasen. Juba won the Threshold last year in 14 minutes, 59 seconds, and Sedwick topped the women's field in 17:54. There will be a 1-mile fun run at 9:30 a.m. Day-of-race registration is $12. The first 1,000 entrants will receive a ticket to Saturday's UCF-East Tennessee State football game at Florida Citrus Bowl at 1:30 p.m.TRIATHLON WEEKENDSOME 400 triathletes from around the Southeast are expected to compete this weekend in the sixth annual Great Clermont Triathlon - a two-day event with start/finish lines on Jaycee Beach, along the shores of Lake Minneola in Clermont.

Nothing transforms a room faster than a new floor, but before you decide what material or pattern you want, consider how you're going to join the new floor to the existing ones in the house. If you're dealing with a new home and a smooth subfloor or same surfaces, you can use a standard T-molding threshold. But the situation requires more thought when you have uneven floor surfaces from previous remodeling. A multifloor transition threshold will bridge two level floors because it's designed around hidden fasteners or plugs created to flex and accommodate different lev- els. You tap the threshold into holes drilled into the floor until it is level and bridges the two surfaces.

The House on Thursday agreed to lift the low threshold of the ''nanny tax,'' which has tripped several Clinton administration nominees and made unknowing scofflaws of many families who employ part-time domestic workers.The House bill, passed 420-0, would raise the threshold for paying Social Security taxes on household workers to $1,250 in wages a year from $50 a quarter, its level since the tax was enacted in 1950. In March, the Senate Finance Committee endorsed legislation that would require families to pay Social Security taxes on domestic workers who earn $630 or more a year.

College football is poised to adopt perhaps the best thing about college basketball. A Final Four concept. A four-team playoff plan will be recommended to the Presidential Oversight Committee next week in Washington , and assuming approval, college football will have its first seeded postseason bracket after the 2014 season. Winter Madness? "We are excited to be on the threshold of creating a new post-season structure for college football that builds in the popularity of our sport," BCS executive director Bill Hancock said in a statement on behalf of the conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who were meeting in Chicago.

Heather Smart had no clue she was having a state-record season in 2011, just a sense that she was getting on base a lot. Spring Garden softball coach Ann Welsh told her then-sophomore standout the news after the season. "I was very surprised," Smart said. "I didn't know that I hit that well. " Now a junior, Smart heads into Friday's North Regional play not only as Spring Garden's leading hitter but also as the state single-season record holder for batting average with a minimum of 60 at bats.

THE VILLAGES — This mammoth retirement community no doubt will always hold a special place for bowler Lennie Boresch Jr. of Kenosha, Wis. Boresch, making his Senior Tour debut, rolled to victory during the PBA Senior Sun Bowl at Spanish Springs Lanes. Another momentous occasion was in store after he bested Ricky Beck of Box Elder, S.D., 278-266 last week at The Villages to claim the title. Boresch headed to Arlington, Texas, where on Thursday he was inducted into the United States Bowling Congress Hall of Fame.

High doses of lead have for some time been linked to chronic kidney damage. But a recent study out of Johns Hopkins Children's Center found that even small levels of lead exposure may be damaging to children's kidneys. The report, published January in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at the records of 769 healthy youth ages 12 to 20 with average blood lead levels of 1.5 micrograms per deciliter (well below the 10 microgram "threshold" of concern of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

KABUL -- President Hamid Karzai nudged closer to the 50 percent vote threshold needed to avoid a runoff in Afghanistan's election, according to results released Sunday. Election officials said they threw out results from 447 out of more than 26,000 polling sites because of fraud allegations. With 74 percent of polling stations counted, Karzai is leading with 48.6 percent.

Rebecca Sparks doesn't mind running in the rain. And the Cocoa Beach resident proved it Saturday as she won the women's race of the Threshold 5K Run for the Kids.Sparks cruised through the wet 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes and 59 seconds. Alec Rukosuev of Apopka won the overall race in 15:24.A brief downpour drenched the more than 1,000 runners and walkers that crowded the starting line at the University of Central Florida.''But the rain was nice,'' Sparks said later. ''It was perfect for me.''For the first two miles, Sparks ran and chatted with her friend, Lisa Emry of Winter Haven - who finished second at 18:13.

Defending champion Brian Jaeger picked up where he left off last season in the opening race of the 1990-91 Track Shack Grand Prix Series with a victory Saturday in the Threshold Run for the Kids 5K at the University of Central Florida.Jaeger, 26, of Altamonte Springs, pulled away from Ed Juba in the last half-mile to lead the field of 1,075 in 14 minutes, 48 seconds.''Ed really established a manly pace in the beginning,'' said Jaeger, who plans to return to the track this indoor season for the first time since the 1989 TAC Indoor Nationals.

Dear Greg: Hughes Network advertises on TV that if you get their system you will always have access to high-speed Internet. My family lives in a rural area of Lake County not served by any other Internet provider, so we forked over $450 to have Hughes install a system. Huge mistake. From Day One, it was slower than dial-up. Most days we had no Internet at all. I placed seven calls to tech support in a four-day period to try to solve the problem. The customer-service reps are in India, and the language barrier was a problem.

Cover Florida, the health-insurance policy touted by Gov. Charlie Crist and passed by the Legislature in May as a way to reduce the state's 3.7 million uninsured, is unlikely to work, according to a report this month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit policy-research group in Washington, D.C. The center analyzed new legislation from both Florida and Georgia designed to reduce the number of uninsured and found both lacking....